thoughts in and out of season
“Neoconservatism” is a contentious term, but it’s useful as a description of a movement that attempts to moderate and so stabilize liberal modernity. In particular, neoconservatism accepts both the modern aspiration to reform all things and bring them in line with clear universal principles, and the liberal choice of freedom, equality and efficiency as the … More ...
What’s the difference between the red and blue states? Here are some answers: Our Secularist Democratic Party (from The Public Interest), and The “morality gap” is becoming the key variable in American politics (from The Atlantic Monthly).
The Public Interest piece documents the obvious truth that the story of the “culture wars” is … More ...
I ran into a discussion of “why leftism” over at 2blowhards.com that was interesting because it dealt with the problem of the attractiveness of the Left. The discussion ended by proposing that the Right
“Claim art, claim food, claim pleasure, claim generosity.”
My response:
… More ...Good idea, but one that’s hard to carry out.
Art: The
Signs that things are the same everywhere: Nude Performance Artist Shocks Conservative Chile and Japanese Activists Hail Ruling on Transgender Sacking. The news reports can’t be relied upon, of course, but it appears there is no serious, sustained and effective opposition to such things anywhere. The ubiquity of cultural radicalism suggests that its sources … More ...
What to do? There’s plenty for right-wingers to complain about but solutions are notoriously scarce. A couple of days ago I put up a piece with some suggestions. Here are some others that friends have put forward:
So what does a traditionalist conservative do when he becomes convinced that public life is proceeding on fundamentally bad principles? The usual resources of the extremist are unavailable to him, because traditionalism is adverse to dogmatism, conspiracy theories and cure-alls. On the other hand, he can no longer participate in what passes for the mainstream. … More ...
A liberal might object that my complaints about liberal intolerance and tyranny are really only complaints that liberalism is the political outlook on which Western institutions are now based. As such, it does what any dominant outlook does: it defines itself as truth and other outlooks as deceit, malice or ignorance, and then acts accordingly. … More ...